Website decodes chutnified English

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Finally, here’s a reason to laugh at ourselves. A website called Samosapedia — interesting, isn’t it? — declares itself to be “the definitive guide to South Asian lingo”. It aims at compiling a key to English as it is spoken in South Asian region coupled with fascinating anecdotes and an option to make your own contributions.
The brainchild of Arun Ranganathan, Vik Bhaskaran, Braxton Robbason, Arvind Thyagarajan and Tara K., the site celebrates the absurdities and idiosyncrasies of our culture and language. Samosapedia’s “About us” page sums it all for the site. It invites users: Join us, yaar! Create an account, share your words, and maaja maadi! Or else, just linger around, checkout the Daily Chutney and yenjoy!
Since Samosapedia’s inception about a month ago, it has compiled close to 3,000 definitions and is getting popular with the Internet addicts.
Aspiring poet Arjun Natrajan explains the site and the rationale behind it by quoting Michael Moncur who said, Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century. Arjun adds, “We have been brought up and bred on an appetite of stories of kings and queens. The English take pride in the Queen’s language. We should also be proud of the way we speak. We have our pronunciations and accents. It’s good that we are finally sporting it and not embarrassed anymore. We have come late, but we have come strong.”
Bandana Sengupta, a freelance writer, feels that more than learning to laugh at ourselves, the site serves as a great trip down memory lane. “With references to Chitrahaar, GoldSpot and Crank Calls; things that kids wouldn’t dream of today yet ones that were so crucial to our growing up years, it’s like rediscovering hidden treasures. It’s a perfect ode to our country’s pop culture, a lot of which was formed when television programming started in India. This site not only documents them but also reminds us. So apart from being self-deprecating, it’s a documentary of our nascent yet rapidly evolving pop culture,” she says.
Author Amrit Shetty, who is also taken in by the idea of going back in time and reliving the past says, “For someone who has spent a lifetime in Southern India and is all too familiar with the Tamil lexicon, this site is refreshingly similar to having a déja vu.”